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Friday, August 22, 2014

Photos: Meet Chuka Umunna, Nigerian Lawyer Who May Become First Black British Prime Minister!

On May 7, 2015, a Nigerian, Chuka Umunna, could make history
by becoming the first black Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Born in
London in 1978, Chuka was bred in the UK. His late father, Bennett, hailed from
Anambra State while his Irish mother, Patricia, is a solicitor.

Co-incidentally, Chuka shares startling similarities with the United States
President, Barack Obama, who is the first black President of the world’s most
powerful nation.

For instance, Chuka is of mixed race, being the child of a Nigerian father and
an Irish mother while Obama is also of mixed race, being the offspring of a
white American woman and a Kenyan father. Also Chuka’s father, Bennett, was
killed in a mysterious car accident in Nigeria in 1992 while Obama’s father was
killed in a car accident in Kenya in 1982.

If history repeats itself as it is being predicted by British political
observers, Chuka, who is also a six-foot tall lawyer like Obama, could become
the first black Prime Minister in the UK.

Chuka’s life story is perhaps a better guide to his future political direction.
It is the story of a rise from the streets of South London (scene of some of
Britain’s worse race riots in the 1980s) to the parliament. But it is not the
story that some might expect.

His father, Bennett, was a Nigerian labourer, who arrived in Britain in the
sixties with one suitcase and no money. Having borrowed the fare from Liverpool
to London, he worked in a carwash, became a successful businessman and died in
a car crash when his son was 13.

Bennett began an import-export business trading with Nigeria and was starting
to make a decent living when he met Patricia Milmo, a solicitor, at a London
party. She happened to be the daughter of Sir Helenus Milmo, a
Cambridge-educated High Court judge and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Nazi
trials. They later got married, a rare combination during a time of high social
inequality and racism.

Chuka believed his father was killed because he refused to indulge in corrupt
practices when he was running for the governorship of Anambra State during the
administration of former military dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd.).

Bennett died after his car ran into a lorry carrying logs along the Onitsha-Owerri
highway in Anambra. Bennett had been splitting his time between London and
Nigeria – where he unsuccessfully ran for the governorship of Anambra State and
had taken a stand against bribery.

At a point Bennett was also the owner of the Rangers International Football
Club of Enugu, the darling of the Igbo people.

When quizzed about his father on Sky News, he had this to say: “There was a lot
of speculation in Nigeria at the time around his death. He was a national
political figure standing on an anti-corruption ticket and refused to bribe
anybody.

“We don’t really talk about it because it is not going to bring him back but I
think he would be bowled over that his son is now a politician just like him.”

Chuka, an English and French Law graduate from the University of Manchester,
who also holds a Master’s degree from Nottingham Law School, says his interest
in politics was shaped by seeing extreme poverty while visiting his father’s
relatives in Nigeria and the social divide in his own Streatham constituency in
the UK. He says that he is “not super-religious” but that his soft-left values
are “rooted in my Christianity.”

The 35-year-old Labour Party Member of Parliament, however, has two hurdles to
cross if he is to make history in the UK. This is because in the UK, for one to
become the Prime Minister, the person must first be a Member of Parliament, the
person’s party must win majority of seats out of the 560 seats in the House of
Commons during the parliamentary elections and the person must be the leader of
his party.

Presently, Chuka is the Member of Parliament for Streatham, a position he has
held since 2010 but must re-contest in 2015 and win to retain the seat.

He is also the Shadow Business Secretary, a position held by a member of Her
Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. The duty of the office holder is to scrutinise the
actions of the government’s Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and
Skills and develop alternative policies. The office holder is a member of the
Shadow Cabinet.

According to the UK Telegraph, Chuka is rumoured to have the strong support of
a former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who was also a Labour Party
leader.

According to the British newspaper, when asked if he was Blair’s anointed
candidate, Chuka said, “I really don’t know anything about that.” However, when
he was pressed further whether he aspired to head his party, he said, “I don’t
entertain any discussion beyond winning the election next year. That would be
completely hypocritical of me. To start thinking about hypothetical scenarios
would be totally indulgent. All my energy is focused on winning the election,
and so should everyone’s. It will be very close.”

Chuka is one of the youngest MPs in the UK having been introduced into British
politics by the current Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, while he was in his
20s.

It was Milband that helped him become an MP and later made him his
Parliamentary Private Secretary before he was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet in
October 2011. He is tipped to become Miliband’s successor and could become the
Prime Minister should the Labour Party win next year’s election.

Chuka, however, claims to hate the comparison of him and Obama which he terms
the “construct of lazy journalists.” He sharply divides opinion in British
politics. Good-looking, articulate, new-media-savvy and a good orator.

According to FT Magazine, he is not universally popular among his own
colleagues, who see more style than substance. “He just has a knack of
alienating people,” said one experienced Labour MP. “He is probably the most
natural communicator I’ve seen since Tony Blair. The problem is that each week
he has fewer supporters than he did at the start of the week.”

Even potential allies recount stories of apparent slights or snubs. A senior
party figure says, “Chuka has put people’s backs up. They feel he is
inaccessible.” Another long-serving MP adds, “The idea of learning the trade
first is only for mere mortals, not for him.” Peter Mandelson, the former
Labour business secretary who played a key role in Blair’s rise through to the
top, thinks the explanation for this is quite simple, “Envy plays a big part in
politics,” he says.

Like Blair, Chuka sometimes connects better with those beyond his own circle.
John Cridland, head of the CBI employers’ group, calls him “a guy with whom we
can do business.” Andrew Tyrie, Tory Chair of the Commons Treasury Committee,
say: “He’s extremely talented and charming.” Andrew Adonis, a former Labour
minister, sums up his cross-party appeal: “The best politicians are those who
look outwards not inwards.”

However, allies of the current British PM, David Cameron, scoffed at the idea
that Chuka might represent a threat to Cameron’s second term bid.

“I can’t think of any issue where he’s put us under pressure,” says one close
friend of the prime minister. “He’s pretty average – he’s a slick corporate
lawyer.”

Also, among his fellow party members, Chuka’s lack of political definition is
another source of irritation as some claim they struggle to work out what he
really believes in. But Chuka says people should show a bit more patience. “It
would be rather unhealthy if after just three years in parliament I was setting
out some blueprint for my country,” he says. “What do people expect?”

But some see him as the potential leader of a mainstream 21st-Century Labour
party with the kind of crossover appeal of Blair’s New Labour. Despite initial
reservations that Chuka might be a bit too left-wing, Blair has started seeing
him regularly. “Chuka strikes Tony as very smart,” says one close ally of the
former PM. “Business is a particularly important brief in tough economic times
and Chuka seems to be rising to the challenge.”

As if Blair’s blessing was not enough, Chuka recalls the “honour” of spending
“a small bit of private time with former US President, Bill Clinton, who he
describes as one of his political heroes. “I think he defies the left-right
description,” Mandelson says in approbation. “He’s part of a generation that
transcends those labels.”

He has also recently been to Europe to meet his friend, the French PM, Manuel
Valls.

According to statistics, almost 15 per cent of people in Britain describe
themselves as “non-white” but the country has never had a party leader from an
ethnic minority background. Nobody has ever come close. Chuka confesses that
until his late teens he had not even thought about a career in politics because
there was “nobody who looked like me” running the country.

Chuka has been vocal in the call for a reduction in government spending as well
as issues on immigration. “They [the French] have something like 40 ministers
compared to our 80,” he says.

On the EU itself, he has called for reform, saying not long ago that free
movement of workers was not intended to mean free movement of jobseekers. “As
one of the most pro-European shadow ministers, I don’t think you can ignore the
impact that free movement has had on some of our communities,” he says, adding
that it has changed because there are “many more EU members.”

He adds, “There’s a number of things we need to look at. Those who tend to
raise the issue of immigration with me are my African and Asian constituents.
They want confidence there are proper controls.

“They want to see people integrate, which is why we shouldn’t be spending all
this money translating documents and [instead] directing resources to ensure
people learn English. And you do need to look at free movement.”

Next year’s election may not be based on ethnicity but it obviously will be
hard not to notice that a British-Nigerian could become the leader of one of
the world’s wealthiest countries.

On the issue of ethnicity, Chuka has this to say, “A lot of people presume –
because of my ethnicity – that I come from a particular social background. I am
very quick to disabuse people of any sense that I’ve wanted and struggled in
the way that, say, my father did. I come from a fairly middle-class background.
People try and pigeonhole you in a box and I find that frustrating sometimes.”

If Chuka is hard to pigeonhole, that may be linked to his own pedigree. It
seems likely, if not certain, that Chuka, whose name means God is the greatest,
is destined to become a larger presence in his party and thus a bigger
potential target despite being a person whose father came to the UK from Nigeria
without a dime.